Tag Archives: Sydney Chinatown

Unfortunately my New Year’s resolution involved cliched health & weightloss stuff and had little to do with blogging more. Though it has been my intention to post more frequently, work and life have gotten the better of me, and it’s now been weeks since my last update!

I hope you all did something great for Lunar New Year — because the food, Lion Dances and food shouldn’t be missed.

(Yes, I just said food twice.)

I’ve spent a lot of time in Cabramatta, which is vying for Number One on my list of favorite suburbs in Sydney (there are two other contenders: Surry Hills & Eastwood). And though this isn’t a post about Cabramatta, I’d encourage you to get down there and enjoy the eateries.

Now, onwards. At the start of the (western) New Year I took a mini-holiday into the city, stayed at a nice CBD hotel and enjoyed the walking-distance opportunity to stuff my face in Chinatown. Now ever since eating reading Eating Asia by Robin & Dave (http://eatingasia.typepad.net) I have had massive cravings to eat dumplings for breakfast. (I would find their post on this subject, but that would take to long, and their blog is well worth your search.) And so these cravings have gone on a year, and at last I had the opportunity to sate these cravings at Mother Chu’s. Feeling slightly hung-over feeling from too long a sleep, The Malaysian & I stumbled down to Chinatown & Mother Chu’s Taiwanese Gourmet for some dumplings, yiu tiao (fried dough) wrapped in green onion pancake, and soup. Delicious.

Mother Chu’s outside seating

Though nothing can be said of the service other than that it is efficient, the food is delicious and homely. And though abrupt wait staff at Western restaurants would make me vow to never come back and spread the word of their rudeness, somehow at these authentic little joints it adds to the charm. And by the way, have your cash in hand when you order: though it is table service, you must pay straight away.

Yes, yes you’re probably wondering whether I even love ramen. But the truth is there’s not much good ramen around Parramatta (that I know of…if you got the scoop lemme know), and I don’t make it into the city as much as I would like.

So when the opportunity does show itself, the best place I can think of to eat a steamy bowl of ramen is Gumshara in the Eating World food court in Chinatown.
I won’t dive into to much detail — there are some great posts around.

Gumshara’s menu is pretty straightforward — pick your broth, pick some toppings if you want. Grab your number, then some chopsticks and a spoon from the communal food-court cutlery buckets and wait. Anxiously. For like 3-5 minutes. After your order comes up you can add some condiments, which are complimentary and sitting on the end of the bench. Some toasted sesame seeds and pickled ginger go nicely.

Miso Ramen

The tonkotsu broth (which you can read about in other posts if you like) is thick with collagen — a product of boiling pork bones and marrow down for hours. Yes, I said hours. It’s slurpy, salty and great for winter. The noodles have a bit of bite to them (perfect) and will fatten in the hot broth if you eat it improperly (meaning if you don’t devour it in less than 10 minutes).

Tonkotsu Ramen w/ extra boiled eggs

The famous bowl I haven’t tried yet (stupid me) is the special pork spare rib ramen — they apparently make only 10 bowls a day but.

In addition — Gumshara is a cheap eat — around $10-12 a bowl (give or take for extras). If Eating World is busy the place gets swarmed with international Uni students & Japanese hipsters.